Blog note: Lots of important, bad MAGA things are happening faster than I can create reasonable posts about. There is usually context and complexity that needs explanation. Putting that in requires additional searching, reading, thinking and analysis, all of which slows me down. Bad MAGA news is usually too complex for proper explanation in bits. But given the length of my list, ~25 topics, I have to do some shorter bits posts to reduce the backlog. Unfortunately, completeness will suffer.
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Bit 1: Gizmodo reports that some or most MAGA authoritarians are unhappy with Musk's Grok AI (artificial intelligence) because it gives answers they do not like: “Elon Musk’s Grok AI Has a Problem: It’s Too Accurate for Conservatives MAGA Authoritarians -- Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot created by Elon Musk’s xAI, was supposed to be the “anti-woke” AI that would satisfy the MAGA masses by doing what other chatbots refuse to do, like…spreading election misinformation and saying racial slurs. But increasingly, Trump-y X users who ask Grok to explain things to them are disappointed to learn the AI doesn’t see things their way and won’t reaffirm all their misguided beliefs (you have to use ChatGPT’s latest sycophantic update for that). .... increasingly, MAGA folks in particular have been getting peeved with Grok, as it has repudiated some of the Trump administration’s biggest ongoing lies. ..... It has sent Trump backers spiraling, and people are starting to notice.”
I replaced conservatives with MAGA authoritarians in the article’s title because real conservatives can accept inconvenient facts, truths and sound reasoning. As I have shown here many times, few MAGA people will tolerate exposure to inconvenient facts, truths or sound reasoning. The evidence of that is overwhelming.
Anyway, all Musk has to do is to ramp up Grok’s AI sycophancy response (as discussed here) and MAGA people will be happy with the misinformation and good to go.
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Bit 2: The American Prospect writes about an important matter that MAGA elites never, ever mention. Specifically, when government regulations are obliterated and corporations left to make their own rules, sometimes deregulated free markets are worse than when they were regulated: “House Republicans Take Their Turn at Ravaging CFPB -- Kneecapping the consumer financial protection agency would do much to enable fraud, and next to nothing to reduce federal expenditures. Much to the delight of Wall Street and billionaires everywhere, the Trump administration, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought have waged a war against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). .... The Republican plan sharply reduces the existing cap on the amount of money the agency can request from the Federal Reserve annually (a staggering 70 percent funding cut), and relinquishes the CFPB’s Civil Penalty Fund to the U.S. Treasury, which would severely limit its ability to provide restitution to victims of financial fraud. .... The CFPB has routinely brought back more in consumer relief than it spends on an annual basis, but a majority of its work would be unable to be conducted with that level of funding, including statutory obligations.”
MAGA elites’ Project 2025 made clear that eliminating protections for consumers (CFPB, etc.), workers (NLRB , etc.) and the environment (EPA, etc.) were top priorities. All three efforts are well underway. As I have pointed out many times before, when government protections are removed, power and wealth flows from protected people and public interests to wealthy special interests. Wealth and power trickles up to djt, and capitalist and religious elites, while risks and damage are offloaded on the public, i.e., socialized.
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Bit 3: Various sources are reporting about a May 1, 2025 EO that djt signed in a thinly veiled effort to advance Christian theocracy in government and law. The effort is cynically disguised as protection for oppressed, discriminated against Christians by state and federal governments. The EO includes these cynical or mostly false assertions: In recent years, some Federal, State, and local policies have threatened America’s unique and beautiful tradition of religious liberty. These policies attempt to infringe upon longstanding conscience protections, prevent parents from sending their children to religious schools, threaten loss of funding or denial of non-profit tax status for faith-based entities, and single out religious groups and institutions for exclusion from governmental programs. .... The Commission shall produce a comprehensive report on the foundations of religious liberty in America, the impact of religious liberty on American society, current threats to domestic religious liberty, strategies to preserve and enhance religious liberty protections for future generations, .....
Rather than facing systemic threats, most or nearly all alleged cases of Christian persecution are legitimate political disagreements. Yes, isolated incidents of bias occur, but they are not remotely close to the systemic threat that djt and Christian nationalist (CN) elites cynically and falsely allege. Elites who control the CN wealth and power movement want to preserve Christianity’s massive cultural primacy in the face of secularism and religious diversity. djt’s false narrative of persecution mobilizes his CN base political support, while insulting and disinforming the entire public.
Q: Is this EO a DEI initiative for Christians?
(looks like it to me)